Lise Lyng Falkenberg's Point of View

Friday, February 13, 2015

Big Hero 6

“Big Hero 6” is based on a team of comic
book superheroes appearing in Marvel Comics. It tells the story of 14 year old
Hiro (Ryan Potter), who suffers incredible losses, faces a masked villain,
gains some friends and suffers even more losses.

Had Hiro been a normal boy, it
would have been hard to justify the light tone of the film, as he is leading an
extremely traumatic life, but Hiro isn’t normal. Firstly, he is a 3D computer-animated
character and secondly he is so brilliant that he enters university at the age
of 14. Here hangs out with his much older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) and
his much older friends Gogo (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.), Honey
Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez) and Fred (T. J. Miller) and meets professor Callaghan
(James Cromwell) and entrepreneur Krei (Alan Tudyk). When a masked villain
steals Hiro’s newest invention, he has to turn himself and his friends into
super heroes while forming a close friendship with the personal healthcare
robot Baymax (Scott Adsit), which his brother has invented.

All the losses that Hiro has to suffer makes
this film at least PG-rated, but I quite like it, although it isn’t surprising,
but actually a bit boring at times. The robot is the star of the film - big,
cuddly and kind like so many animated characters before him from Baloo in “The
Jungle Book” to Sulley in “Monsters Inc.” - and the friendship between him and
Hiro is quite touching. I found it much too easy to guess the identity of the
masked villain, though, and all of the characters are extremely stereotype, especially
the female characters, Hiro’s Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph) included.

What I like the best about “Big Hero 6” is
how San Francisco and Tokyo has merged into one city: San Fransokyo, taking the
best from both. That is brilliant. Moreover, YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil
Lester cameo as two of Krei’s technicians, at least in the UK-version.

The film is directed by Dan Hall and Chris
Williams, it lasts 102 minutes and I’ll give it three out of five stars: ***

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Books I read in 2014

Another
year has gone and it is time for my annual reading list. Once again I’ve read
(or re-read) 40+ books throughout the year, mostly novels and short stories,
but also children’s books, manga, biographies and other non-fiction. Most of
the books I’ve read in the original language (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish,
English, French and a bit Japanese – no German books this year, sadly), but the
list also includes translations of books from Spain, Finland and Russia as well
as the more complicated Japanese books.

My favourite in 2014 was without doubt Madeline Miller’s “The Song of Achilles”.
In this, her first novel, she retells Homer’s “Illiad” in the voice of
Patroclus, Achilles’ highborn companion and lover, as the novel is composed as an
autobiography. The love story between the degraded Patroclus and his sworn
brother, the demigod Achilles, is brilliantly written and very moving and the
depiction of the Trojan War is heart breaking.

I would also like to call attention to Pat Barker’s “Regeneration” trilogy,
especially volume two, “The Eye in the Door”. These novels are fantastic and I
was surprised to learn that the author is a woman, as both the tone and the
subject of the books are very masculine. The trilogy consists of historical novels
on the First World War, especially the effect that the war had on British
soldiers.

During 2014, I re-read a lot of books written by old favourite authors of mine,
like the Danish H. C. Branner and the Norwegian Johan Borgen, but I also got a
new favourite and that is the Japanese female author Banana Yoshimoto. She
writes about urban existentialism and the exhaustion of young Japanese trapped
between imagination and reality in contemporary Japan. She does this in a very
subdued and - to me - Japanese way with recurrent use of dreams and sense
impressions. So far, I have written three books by her, “The Lake” being my
favourite, and I can’t wait to read more.

With Miller, Barker and Yoshimoto being my favourites in 2014, it is safe to
say that it was a year of female authors for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get
anything published myself, at least not in my own name, as I’ve been very ill
all year, but I expect to finish a new short story collection in 2015. Anyway,
here is my complete reading list and I hope it will inspire you to read some
books yourself:

Friday, January 02, 2015

New Year’s Resolution 2015

Happy New Year, everybody. I hope you’ll
have a great year. Now is the time for New Year’s resolutions and after having
spent all of Christmas (expect for the 24th when my daughter was at
home) as well as New Year’s Eve on my own, I have a great one for you: spend
more time with friends and family members who are ill or disabled. It’ll be
very much appreciated as ill and disabled people are often isolated from the rest
of the world. At least that’s what has happened to me.

It is no secret that I’ve been disabled
since 2006 due to a slipped disc and Modic changes in the bones in my spine. In
2013 it got even worse as my knees were affected by both a meniscus tear and really
bad osteoarthritis where the cartilage has deteriorated in my left knee. I’m in
extreme pain and I can’t walk without the aid of a walking stick or a rollator
and even then, I can only walk a few steps at a time. For the past year I’ve
been confined to my house, only being able to venture outside when I could
afford a taxi as I can’t even walk to the bus stop anymore and I can’t ride a
bike or drive a car.

The pain is horrible, but the isolation is
worse. Ever since I fell ill and especially after I lost the ability to walk
without aid, friends and family have scurried away. I’ve had a lot of friends
abroad, but now that I can’t travel and visit them anymore, instead of coming
to Denmark to visit me for a change, I just don’t hear from. As for my Danish
friends and family, I’ve spent less than TWO days with them last year, or
rather 41 hours divided between four friends and two family members. One family
member only spent one hour with me during the entire 2014 and one friend only
spent two hours, which is NOTHING compared to the rest of the year where I sit
at home on my own.

Now wait a minute, someone will perhaps object.
What about that daughter of yours? Well, she is a teenager and as such she goes
to school and hangs out with friends and we don’t see much of each other
although she lives at home. Furthermore she is at the age where parents are
hopeless so it’s difficult to have a conversation with her or get her to help
out at home. And that’s another problem. Apart from a small pension, I have a
cleaning lady cleaning coming over an hour a week, but that is all the help I
get. I’m expected to go grocery shopping and do the cooking and washing and
everything else on my own and I just can’t. Asking friends and family for help
is no solution as either they won’t do it or they bitch about it, so I’ve
stopped asking.

My situation is not going to change in the
near future. My back will never improve and I’ll only be able to walk again if
I get new knees, but here in Denmark the doctors don’t like to replace knees on
people who are under 60, so I have a long wait ahead of me. It would be a lot
easier if I had someone to talk to, a visit to look forward to or somebody
taking me out somewhere, but I haven’t and they don’t. And I can’t even go out
and find new friends as I can’t get out! But if YOU know someone ill or
disabled who needs help or just a bit of cheering up, please don’t hesitate to
do so. Remember, that although we can’t walk or whatever anymore, we are still
the same. We are still your friend, sister, cousin etc. and we still want to be
part of your life. Please, be part of ours!